The Washington Post's free daily newspaper mistakenly used a male gender symbol to illustrate a cover story about women's rights.

CLAIM

EXAMPLES

Collected via Twitter, January 2017

RATING

ORIGIN

On 5 January 2017, an image purportedly showing the cover of Express, a free daily newspaper produced by the Washington Post, was widely circulated on social media. The image showed a group of women forming the shape of the male gender symbol, despite the fact that the cover story was about a women’s rights march planned for the day after President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration:

The image was widely circulated by viewers poking fun at Express for their mistake, but the glaring and seemingly obvious error caused some to wonder if the purported cover image was real.

The graphic reproduced above does show a real cover produced for the Express story on a women’s rights march. It was marketed as a “Print Edition” by the Washington Post was reportedly passed out to commuters in Washington, D.C., and was made available as a PDF download:

Shortly after the image went viral, the Express issued an apology via Twitter and shared a new version of the cover featuring a group of women standing in the shape of the female gender symbol: